Among the most significant changes with this year’s Elements releases has little to do with new features but instead concerns the ways users purchase and own the software. While prior versions of Photoshop and Premiere Elements have been lifetime licenses — the user buys the software and then owns it indefinitely — this year’s release has moved to a three-year license term.
Remember, it’s morally correct to pirate every single adobe product. Same goes for every Nintendo product
It’s also a major pain in the ass to do now. I forget how I did it last time, some fuck Adobe subreddit had a guide for it but it’s so much more than just install and drop lolcrackorvirus.dll into the folder.
Adobe used to house all the licensing mechanisms in a single file named
amtlib.dll. The people who cracked it just nulled out the function. And since it was the same for every piece of software, just repeat the null process for each one. Bam, the entire suite for free.When Adobe switched from CS to CC subscription, it was cracked in 24 hours. Largely because they didn’t change much.
Adobe then axed the crippling DLL file and baked the mechanism right into the executable. A patcher tool was released that could crack each one. The upside is you could install and keep them updated from the CC Desktop and just run the patcher each time. Sometimes you had to wait for an update to the patcher. So before you clicked “update” you had to double check to make sure it worked.
To stop the free trial abuse (which is how people installed anyway) Adobe started requiring billing information during setup before you even get to downloads.
Later on, Adobe prevented users from updating apps if there wasn’t an active subscription.
The patcher eventually stopped working because it was abandoned (this around 2019 when I gave up using it because Resolve and Affinity were more affordable and met my needs.) Months later someone else picked up the patcher development. There’s also pre-cracked versions you can download and install.
I’ve not touched Adobe since and find Resolve to be significantly more stable and at $300, much more affordable. The Affinity Photo and Designer apps are great and affordable too at $170 for the bundle.
Fuck Adobe. They are the epitome of the greedy, toxic software company.
I switched from Photoshop over to Krita last year. I’ve tried Gimp in the past, but just can’t adjust to the UI. Krita is different too, but not to the same degree. I’ve been enjoying it. It’s well-made and very powerful, with very good online support.
Can recommend the Affinity suite for anyone looking for some good alternatives.
Darktable is alright for LightRoom replacement as well.
Swapped to the Affinity suite a few months ago and have been loving it. DaVinci Resolve replaced Premiere. Still having trouble finding a decent After Effects replacement though. I’ve been eyeing Natron but haven’t tried it yet.
What does natron offer that you would use it over fusion (in davinci resolve)?
To be honest, I never considered fusion to be the same thing. But I guess it is. Hmm. Thanks for that insight. I’m going to look into fusions features more.
Oh yeah resolve is great as well. Love how they all have iPad apps too, moved so much of my workflow to the couch.
it’s funny that affinity designer can parse PDFs much better than illustrator
Inkscape recently also got decent multipage import and export for multipage pdfs and honestly it works great!
Affinity was sold. Sorry
Have you tried https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP for a Photoshop themed GIMP?
Today I went to cancel the Adobe stock trial, and during this extensive cancellation process, they tried to score me on another package for a year, and when I checked, it didn’t include the product which I was fucking canceling… Which is just insane and ridiculous!
Hey I’m canceling this product.
Oh ok. You want to give us a bunch of money for more unrelated products?
GIMP 3.0 RC1 will come very soon (this month) & offers a lot of missing features users expect like adjustment layers (I’ve been waiting a decade for this).
There has to be a meaningful number of companies where each individually is spending more on adobe licenses than it would cost them to pay a bunch of developers to get gimp to the point where it is a fully sufficient alternative. But hey, the only thing more important to capitalists than making profit seems to be, to not go for cheaper FLOSS options, rather than spending pointlessly large amounts of money on proprietary software…
There is still the perception that it’s too cheap to be good in many cases. I’ve run into this fairly recently. It’s stupid, but it exists, and sometimes it exists in the people making the decisions.
Feels like there’s a very simple solution to that. “We can’t use free software, you get what you pay for. We’re not switching to GIMP.” “Okay, what about Rasteditor? It costs $99/year.” “Sounds good, get a license for everyone on the team.” And Rasteditor is just a fork of GIMP with a different logo and the subscription model just donates to the GIMP project.
A lot of FOSS projects have succeeded in approximately this way. I think it can only be a matter of time until this happens even in this area.
why cant people just give up adobe and switch to davinci and affinity
Ecosystems and collaboration. If you’re already using Adobe for X and Y in your teams, it’s cheaper to get a CC license; and as for collaboration Adobe files are proprietary (and tbh so are Affinity files) so it’s harder to transition off of them. You can open .psd files in affinity, but wanting to export one will rasterize your text. And you can’t even export a .ai file, sure you can do pdfs and that preserves vector information and layers, but that’s just friction that businesses wouldn’t want to deal with.
oh that makes sense, VENDOR LOCK IN.
At this point it’s the only assed Adobe has. No one who uses Adobe software actually likes it.
FOSS projects are often worth their salt
True
And then once this move has had enough to time to narrow their userbase to only the ones dumb enough to tolerate such bullshit, they’ll do it again because number go up lol
Literally everyone hates Adobe. At this point I’m shocked there hasn’t been a consortium of companies pushing for alternatives.
It’s not even just about the money. So many companies rely on a workflow and business model that Adobe can change on a whim at literally any time they like. That’s a level of trust I’m surprised that so many companies and governments are completely fine with.
They keep buying up anything that’s an alternative. They need Monopoly sanctions.
I miss PhotoStyler. The first of many Photoshop casualties.
That’s a level of trust I’m surprised that so many companies and governments are completely fine with.
Crowdstrike. 'Nuff said.
There’s another free video editor called shotcut. Give it a try, works great.
There’s also free and open source alternatives.
That’s why I’m a little skeptical when buying lifetime licenses.
I love my Plex server and even pay for Plex pass, would love to buy lifetime. But what if two weeks after I buy they just decide this isn’t their business model anymore?
They cannot change the terms of a license without reserving themselves the right to do so which would be a red flag, this is in reference to future sales of the license for this software.
Isn’t Plex FOSS and you only need to pay for the extras? You don’t need PlexPass.
Plex is not FOSS. But I am with you. I bought Plex pass about 10 years ago and still use it daily
It looks like the media player is open source, but the media server is not.
I also bought the lifetime license a while ago, and am also happy with that purchase.
Ah, I guess that shows my ignorance. Thanks.
Good to know! Everyone says so many good things about it, I might just buy it myself
At this point, I treat Adobe like malware on my personal systems.
Enshittification seems to be accelerating.
they said, linking to an LLM-generated song
Pretty fun dumb thing to play with. Use it to entertain friends and impress
Ludditestech-illiterate boomers like my Dad.Occasionally someone is able to manually finesse it into making it do something actually cool.
Edit : To be clear, I support artists and do NOT support the replacement of genuine and meaningful art created by individual minds.
At the same time, I also would pay to watch a live real human choir + orchestra performance of that “Newton’s Genius” song if someone put that LLM song to sheet music.
luddites weren’t anti technology, they were pro workers rights. they would find gpt style ai offensive.
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The article you linked is much more detailed than the one I read, so this interaction has benefited both of us.
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I dunno, luddites like me aren’t impressed at it. We’re rolling our eyes at it.
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Yup, I don’t have any Adobe software on any of my systems, and I intend to keep it that way.
I fucking hate Adobe so much. Their software has been in a nose dive for years now. I still have to use it for work at the moment, but I’m slowly seeing signs that alternatives are picking up enough adoption to finally ditch them.
I ditched after CS6… immediately when they said it would go to subscription I installed darktable
I also have to use it for work. I don’t know if it’s Adobe, or Windows 11, or a toxic combination of both, but not a single day goes by where I can just create without things randomly breaking. Illustrator stops letting me drag with the direct selection tool. Premiere switches to hotkeys as I’m typing text. InDesign…actually InDesign has been behaving.
But literally all the other Adobe apps will break AS I’M USING THEM - like, an action I’ve literally just done suddenly doesn’t work or glitches out. A couple weeks ago Premiere and Photoshop would literally crash on open. The day before they were both fine.
I have Gimp, Inkscape, and KdenLive installed just in case.
Genuine question: Why are Adobe clients not holding pitchforks and standing outside their offices every day for the past 2 years?
I think, because most people who are actually relying on Adobe products (e.g. making money with them) are making way more than it costs (by several orders of magnitude) so they let themselves get slowly boiled because they still make money hand over fist.
Everytime there is a price increase, the discussion becomes: do we retrain x people, costing us y per person and reducing productivity for z months, or do we just take the L and pay a flat percent increase per seat and maintain productivity. The choice is almost always the second one because it’s hard to predict how prices will increase in the future and the costs of retraining your staff.
The people not making money have no resources to stand up to Adobe, so they make noise because it’s all they can do. Adobe ignores them because they don’t generate a significant portion of their revenue.
If you are an employee for a company using Adobe products, it’s likely you don’t even care and you may not even be aware of the pricing scheme your company is following.
The new license comes in this really cute collar! To activate it. Simply lock the collar on the user’s neck and bam! You got 3 years of free Adobe Acrobat and Elements!
Do not take the collar off. It is secured by Battle Royale Inc. it will remove the user’s neck area separating the top part from the bottom part. It’s a very strict but effective license option!
Also, the collar may cause slight discomfort including (but not limited to) itching, rashes, choking, rashes and llergic reactions). For such cases, we have technitians availiable in 20+ of the world’s largest cities to help you alleviate the symptoms! (You’ll have to get an appointment through a fake AI robocall first)
T&C
Any attempt to touch the collar by a person not wearing it will cause the collar to start burning the flesh of both the toucher and wearer. When the wesrer wishes to use Adobe Elements, they have to plug in their collar into the computer. Only the wearer may touch the wire of the collar - any attempt by a 3rd party to touch the collar will cause a 80dB screeching noise to be emitted by the collar. Any complains must be arbitrated. We will not budge like those pussies over at Disney. If you’re an EU citizen you have to renounce your citizenship if you wish to use Adobe products. Our products may onle be used in progressive democracies with strong corporate freedom of forced arbitration.
Spoiler
Tbh I think I sold them way too short since their agreement would be at least 35000 words long
I love it!
This just in! The collars are now compatible with the new Samsung USB C battery packs! You know what that means right?
That’s right! The employees can now return home without the automatic head separation system going off! The battery packs are available at Walmart and Costco. They are not rechargeable one time use and biodegradable! You’re saving the planet! One pack allows the employee full freedom to go shopping, ho home, be with their family, watch someone take a shower and participate in conjugal visitation. You must not wet the collar to prevent accidental loss of GPS communication to the Deadman switch. Also plan your routes accordingly, you must not drive under any bridge or enter buildings with thickness greater than 12 inches of concrete.
Does it come with a bunny tail?
i miss macromedia :(
and own
Are you sure?
The scummyness of this company knows no bounds.
